Tom Coughlin postgame press conference: "They had a lot of things they had to overcome today"

(On his impressions of the game…) We talked about starting fast, and we did it. I thought that was very good. We haven’t had a lot of success here, so it was nice to be able to come here and win. I thought our guys handled all that went with the environment, the noise and all those things, very well. [I’m] disappointed with one turnover, which gave them a little bit of momentum, but they weren’t able to capitalize on it. We had a very good first half, with contributions on all three sides.

With the exception of the one ball that Leon Washington broke out with in the middle of the field, we did a nice job with our strategic placement of the ball in terms of our kickoff. He’s an incredible weapaon, obviously, for their team in terms of field position. We had just the one punt, and the coverage on the punt was very good. We thought Leon would be back there, and he was.

Our defense played well. We gave up the one double-move touchdown. I was pleased with the end of the game because of the way we put the ball on the ground. We haven’t always been able to do that or have been successful with that. We were a little bit frustrated by not getting the ball in the end zome for a touchdown at the opposite end of the field on a couple of occasions. But we give them, obviously, credit. They played hard all the way. They had a lot of things they had to overcome today.

(On switching the offensive line around…) We felt that coming in here that the noise and what have you – we just felt like we would have a better handle of what was going on in terms of veterans on the field. Of course, the other thing is Adam [Koets] gives us total flexibility. He played tackle on Wednesday, played center and guard on Thursday and Friday. We just felt like when we came in here the right move was to try and put as many veterans out there you can. We may have had, what, one false start, maybe? There’s definitely times we’ve been here with a lot of those.

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(On if he would want to start Shawn Andrews next week…) I would want to look at the tape, but I know we had some success over there running the ball. I don’t know whyat the stats were in the pressures. I’m not sure there was even a sack. I don’t think there was. I know Shawn was excited about playing, and I know when he came to the sidelines on a lot of occasions he was happy to be out there.

(On if he was pleased his team kept its poise after an early turnover…) I was. The defense, of course, helped out tremendously by forcing the punt. I was disappointed in that whole thing because I had a bad look at the Kevin Boss fumble. I was blocked out. I didn’t see it. I might have been able to hurry things up a little bit had I been able to see it, but I did not see it. That was a problem.

(On the play of Eli Manning…) I thought he was really sharp. I thought he managed it, the whole first half, was [sic] done very, very well. He made some outstanding throws. He even came out of the pocket on the run for the one to Boss, which I thought was very good. He directed the run, he directed the pass, he kept everybody poised, the clock was not an issue for us. He did a really nice job.

(On the pressuring Seattle’s Charlie Whitehurst…) Well, it was a young quarterback making his first start. We had an idea of how they would attack, what their plan would be, they certainly were trying as best they could not to put him in a real difficult situation. We were trying to pressure him, trying to get up there.

(On his overview of his team…) Today, it was the idea that we came back from the bye and played well. That’s something that’s always on your mind. I thought that was a good thing. I thought our players really approached the game well. I told you the other day that I thought on Monday they really came to work ready to go. That’s what I was looking for, and that’s what they gave us. That was a real plus.

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